FFIX has the best combination of characters, the relation among them is stronger than in any other FF game, even FFVII. Every character has his/her real story which relates perfectly to the plot. And how can anyone possibly dislikes a s/he that eats your enemies? Quina is awesome . On the other hand, the plot in FFXII is very weak, mainly because;
1) Its concept was taken from FFIX in an unsuccessful attempt to create the same medieval futuristic setting FFIX had and worked out perfectly in its case.
2) The storyline was way too short and extremely tedious. The characters spend hours and hours aimlessly walking around before reaching the next destination, and when they do the player would have already forgotten why things happen the way they do. I know I did. There are so many empty spaces. The developers focused so much on the gameplay that they entirely forgot about the storyline. And unfortunately the gameplay turned out to be majorly flawed even though it had a lot of potential.
3) The "so called main character" has absolutely no connection to the main storyline.
4) The backgrounds of a couple of characters (talking significantly about Balthier here) had potential but weren't developed nor included enough in the story.

It's true that sidequests take a major part of every Final Fantasy, but who cares about them when the essentials of the game suck terribly?! I had to force myself to keep on playing in FFXII, I struggled to reach the end because the entire game was made up of easy battles that I couldn't even fight them myself because my characters did all the job for me. Nevertheless I will admit that the hunts were more fun than the game itself for a while and definitely made the walking around less boring... just a little. Whereas FFIX's sidequests were enjoyable and the earnings were worthwhile, like the items you receive in Chocobo hot and cold. Terra Master was fun and demanded a lot of strategy, yet I prefer FFVIIIs Triple Trade Card game, especially when you get to play with almost all the rules of the game near the end. FFX-2s Shpere Break is my favorite sidequest in the series, so I will have to agree with Mabus on this one. Yet, for me, FFX-2 was one of the worst if not the worst Final Fantasy ever.
Even if the sidequests in FFIX weren't the best in the series, yet they are far better than the ones in FFXII. The summons in FFXII, which most of them are obtained in sidequests, are a 100% worthless. The ones in FFIX weren't only beneficial but also played major role in the storyline.

Mabus wrote:

Most hated area was definitely Pandemonium (Castle thing you walk into, which I believe near the end had a secret shop you could buy ridiculous stuff in)

I found it one of the best areas in the entire series since there are many important scenes in that place and many facts are revealed. Add to it the amazing music that plays.

Moogle Mail was a great sidequest becase it added a lot of foreshadowing to the storyline and on the flip side reaffirmed things that recently happened. And Amarant rocks your face too, he kills people... in 10 seconds... at lvl 99 his ultimate move kills every monster in the game in 10 seconds, and a physical attack character that can heal MP and HP? Wicked strong.

You used Vivi and didn't use Steiner? Lamesauce bud, Half of Vivi's power comes from teaming him up with Steiner.

I keep trying to say this and maybe people just speed read my gigantic posts, but FFXII is based on FF Tactics Advanced (and FF Tactics world)not on any other world or Final Fantasy. Lara, you posted in the Tactics thread that you finished the game. That game was all politics and the love story was just minute part of the plot. Tactics plot sometimes jumped around and confused things.

If anyone hasn't played FF Tactics Advanced, try it out. (Emulator and Rom... Although I own the original cartridge)

Final Fantasy IX was made in order to go back to the roots of Final Fantasy. If you look at other FFVII and FFVIII you'll see that those are fundamentally different than FFIX (storyline, techniology, characters, etc).

I think I have a link somewhere here for a video series that does a excellent job showing how each Final Fantasy fits into the FF universe. (I've only saw the FFVII one). I think that is why you, Lara, put it up so highly in the FF games. They were trying to get back to the roots. If any main Final Fantasy could be related to FFXII I would have to say FFVII is the closest in how the worlds are set (Tech wise + powers[politics] wise)

From what I feel in FFXII, is that they don't spoon feed you story. I admit I sometimes lost what was going on, but that was after I stopped playing for a while.

I think the reason they put in the gambits was because they made the monsters incredibly hard (well not the cannon fodder monsters the bosses and rares and etc). IT made it easy so you didn't have to stop and manually apply phoenix down(or arise) and it's real time fighting (to a degree). That in itself needs to find the best system for it. Without gambits, I think most people would have not even played half as much because of how hard the game would have actually been.

The summons were definitely screwed up in FFXII... too hard to get them to do decent attacks, and the whole life thing was a major pain. I think If FFXIII does well, they go away from MP and maybe stick to length of time to complete spells and summons.

@Fith

I know there were certain combos that worked well together but I hated Steiner so I didn't use him.

I think I disliked pandemonium was because I didn't grind in FFIX like I do in a lot of others. So I went there low level, and had to pray to get through as fast as I could. Also it was long.

Oh and from previously, FFXII does have a bigger space than FFVII. I am looking at 2 main points here:
1. Not including world map (world map is not applicable because a)you're f-ing gigantic, I mean you loom over forests!, This is not rendered back grounds and something that the developers put time into. World maps usually lack any of the detail actual towns or places you can walk around in. FFXII's world map was just points like FFX, so all of what you see has been worked on to what everthing else was (I don't know where the underwater part of the map would fit though for FFVII)

2. Taking what I said above, that means that it'd take you hours (some hyperbole here) to run from the Tomb of Raithwall to Bafonheim Port. Killing creatures that got in your way (because no random battles). Now FFVII did have a lot of little places where you are your tiny sprite running around. I still don't think those add up to the amount of space in places where you run around in as your sprites in FFXII.

_________________RIP Kurt von D. Father figure to me, friend, and all around good human being. (July 22nd, 2010).~~Reverse patronizing = troll lol~~If today is all we see, then tomorrow seems to meIs just and illusion we believe.~~You should try and click a couple ads on Funender each day to generate some revenue.~~

the only gambit i used was to heal under a certian amount of health and could have done that myself without much difficulty , i didnt see the point in letting it play for me, it would have taken the fun out of playing if i wasnt actually playing, i didnt find the game THAT hard

_________________<from me

<from rukie

< from shandy

Aruko wrote:

Though seriously if Im out walking around in the night to ASDA with the pedo/rapist/murderer/psycho of questionable sanity vampy....who do I have to be afraid of? XD

Kuro Ryu wrote:

A warlock? Arc? ... I've heard weirder things about you to be fair actually XD

There is a difference between being FFTA and being set in the world of FFTA. I wasn't referring to Zidane and Garnet when I wrote about the relation between the characters, I meant the ones all the characters have between one another; their friendship, not the love story in the game. Yes, I do think that love stories are very important in Final Fantasy games, yet; the lack of a love story isn't a reason for me to hate an entire game (I think dislike is a better word to use here). Final Fantasy Tactics has a more complex political intrigue than the one Final Fantasy XII has, yet I like Tactics, I don't mind politics when the plot is actually good. I've written about this somewhere before…

[spoil]

Lara wrote:

Final Fantasy XII isn’t Square Enix’s best achievement to begin with. Major parts of its system are dislikeable and in need of serious developments. Despite if there is enough magic or not; FFXII didn’t have that much of political issues, the storyline in my opinion was more focused on Ashe’s story and the personal decisions she makes with the view of her kingdom and deceased husband in mind, the political issues were used as a background for Ashe’s story, but not the main story. I mentioned before that the storyline in FFXII has few good parts; well; it would have been better if they focused on Balthier’s history with the Archadian Empire involving it more with Dalmasca, Rosaria, the resistance… etc.

Most of you said “It began with…” yes indeed it began with a political conflict… and then… two years passed… and the story was all about Ashe regaining her birthright. It would have been a much better storyline if the game took place two years before the events in FFXII, Rusler’s death and the events that followed. That will not only cause the disappearance of the source of uselessness; Vaan and Penelo from the main screen; but will also improve the storyline’s quality by giving it some originality. That would have made the game political. Political or not, at least it would have been better. That’s what I think.

[/spoil]

If Final Fantasy Tactics ever confused things it would be because of its complexity not because it lacked substance like FFXII did.

Final Fantasy IX is similar to the older Final Fantasies, yes that could be one reason why it's my second favorite, since I do think the older games are better, but it's not the main reason. Difference can sometimes be for the best; however, it didn't happen in the case of Final Fantasy. Maybe I do live in the past, but I am not reluctant to change. Better games can be made, but it's just not happening yet and that's why I like the older games better. Not because they were the first to be made, but because they are simply better.

Mabus wrote:

I think the reason they put in the gambits was because they made the monsters incredibly hard (well not the cannon fodder monsters the bosses and rares and etc). IT made it easy so you didn't have to stop and manually apply phoenix down(or arise) and it's real time fighting (to a degree). That in itself needs to find the best system for it. Without gambits, I think most people would have not even played half as much because of how hard the game would have actually been.

Yes, yes, exactly. With the kinds of monsters you're talking about there has to be a suitable system for it. Without gambits the game would have been somehow similar to FFT where each battle took about half an hour or more, which would have ruined the game, probably more than it's ruined now. So they used gambits to avoid a complete destruction of the game and ended up with the current battle system, which obviously is the opposite of what was intended to be and didn't work out very well. And that's why I think the gameplay is flawed.

And please don't start comparing between FFXII and FFVII, I will explode if you do.

I'll just shut up, my views seems to irritate a lot of people lol. And I'm very argumentative... which is one of my downfalls!

Oh here is the video series I was talking about.
I started I a topic about the video series I was watching, and talked about earlier in this topic, in the Final Fantasies forum. Watch and enjoy how each Final Fantasy fit into the FF universe and why some of the games were made the way they were.

It's funny how the original lead, on FF loved FFIX while I dislike it. I guess you're more in tune with what Hironobu Sakaguchi liked!

I like how it shows how each game fit. Ifrit and shiva the longest running summons... I didn't know that Zeromus was the final boss for FF II, but they used the name for a summon in FF XII... Also, some of the zodiac monsters from FF tactics, were also used.

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